EU citizens face US visa clampdown

The US may impose visas on all EU citizens in a move to improve the screening of airline passengers for potential terrorists.

The plan, part of a law going through Congress, would involve Europeans sending personal details to the US authorities via the internet ahead of their travel.

The European Commission and member states are expected to oppose the move, which will be seen as putting restrictions on millions of European business travellers and tourists who visit the US every year.

Fifteen EU states are currently part of a ‘visa-waiver programme’ which exempts their citizens from requiring a visa to enter the US for business, pleasure or transit. The remaining EU states - Greece plus 11 of the 12 newest member states (all except Slovenia) - have been campaigning to be allowed to join the programme.

An EU official said that the US proposal would "essentially be imposing a visa requirement where one doesn’t exist at the moment". "You have many people travelling to the US every year not all of whom have internet access. There are also the implications for business people who often travel at the last minute," the official added.

Sarah Ludford, a British Liberal MEP, said: "It’s bringing in visas by the back-door. They’re upping the demands all the time…they are going to make it so bureaucratic and you are going to lose the benefits of a visa-waiver."

The Commission is monitoring the bill in Congress but a spokesman refused to comment until "the final outcome of the text".

One possible response would be to impose reciprocal visa requirements on US citizens entering the EU. Greek Socialist MEP Stavros Lambrinidis said: "If the US changes the visa system there is no question the Commission will have to examine the consequences at the European level. If a third country changes its visa requirements for European citizens then the Commission would have to change the requirements for that third country."

The US is understood to have discussed with the UK Home Secretary John Reid the threat from "home-grown terrorists" travelling to the US from Europe, taking advantage of the visa-waiver scheme. The State Department said that residents of a visa-waiver country could still be denied access to the US.

For the last four years the US has required European airlines to send over personal information on passengers. Last year the US required people travelling on the visa-waiver scheme to have passports with biometric information. The Bush administration supports the increased restrictions, arguing that it would raise the level of security for all EU countries while adding flexibility.

At the European Parliament on Monday (14 May), Michael Chertoff, the US secretary of homeland security, said: "As part of adding flexibility to the visa-waiver programme which would make it easier for some of the states in eastern Europe, who have been waiting to join the programme, we would generally elevate the level of security for all countries by having something called electronic travel authorisation which would be an online submission of data - the kind of information you have in your passport, something similar to that - in advance."

If the proposal is kept in the final draft of the bill, people wishing to travel to the US would have to await clearance, so prompting concerns over obstacles for European citizens.

Chertoff, whose visit was intended to calm MEPs’ concerns about data privacy, said the proposed system would be similar to the one used by Australia in which the passport details are automatically checked against watch lists. "It gives us more time to analyse whether we have a problem with people coming in and it minimises the problem we sometimes have when people take a six-hour trip across the Atlantic and they turn up and then we say ‘sorry you have to go home again’," Chertoff said.

The US may impose visas on all EU citizens in a move to improve the screening of airline passengers for potential terrorists.